Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

In a ten-hole format, the venerable Standard Richter tuning spans tonally from Tonic 1 to Tonic 4. This looks like three octaves; however, its first and last octaves are missing some notes. Three complete octaves of a septatonic scale simply do not fit within ten holes. Some tunings are extremely wi...

On this day (17January2019) I altered several of the comments and diagrams above, to make them clearer and more consistent.

Note that in the tuning below, the tonics of the slide-out layer have been moved from the 1, 5 and 9 draws to the 3, 7 and 11 draws. ADDENDUM, Jan. 13, 2020: Please note that, by using the slider, a complete Ionian scale can be played from 1 blow to 3 draw. Also note that, in the slide-in layer, the...

Bravo! Thank you very much! This is the re-tuning scheme that Brendan used just above. The slide-in layer contains the same notes but one semitone higher. In a 12-hole slide chromatic Solo harp, a total of 18 (out of 48) reeds must be re-tuned. If one started with a Bb major Solo harp, the result wo...

This reminds me of a related concept. In some tunings of some Electronic Wind Instruments (EWIs), one special key will raise the pitch by two semitones, and a different key lowers the pitch by one semitone. Pressing both gives the additive effect of raising the pitch by one semitone.